The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

John C. Torpey had argued that the reluctance or outright refusal of nations to
admit German Jewish refugees, which could have provided a means of resolving the
Jewish Question within the Reich, may “ultimately have helped to push the Nazis toward
extermination as the ‘final solution’ of the ‘Jewish problem.’” 6 Gerald Sorin observed
that the Conference failed to produce any declaratory statement criticizing the Reich for
its primary responsibility in creating the refugee problem or its persecutory policies. The
adoption of the role of international bystander resulted in an “unintentional signal” to the
Nazis that external pressure would not be applied against the methodology utilized by the
Reich in solving the “Jewish problem.” 7
Ernst Marcus asserted that
within Germany the failure of the Evian Conference had the result that the Party and the Gestapo,
which had been kept under restrain…until then, gained the upper hand over those who preferred
orderly emigration to the outbreak of chaos within the Jewish community. There is an immutable
connection between the…Evian Conference and the events of November [1938 which
represented] nothing but an attempt by the extremist wing of the Party to solve the Jewish problem
in their own way. Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc. were the next stages. 8
Ernest G. Heppner also had argued that the impotency of the Evian Conference
granted license to Hitler to pursue a more radical solution of the Jewish Question. The
6 John C.Torpey, Invention of the Passport, 135-136.
7 Gerald Sorin, Tradition Transformed: The Jewish Experience in America (Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins, Press, 1997), 188. Gregory H. Stanton, President, Genocide Watch, has argued that genocides do
not arise spontaneously, but develop through a series of stages. Intervention at any one of these levels had
the potential to avert or mitigate genocide. These phases included: classification, symbolization,
dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination and denial. The years leading up to
and including the Holocaust conform to these stages. Gregory H. Stanton, “The 8 Stages of Genocide”
available from http://www.genocidewatch.org/aboutgenocide/8stagesofgenocide.html; Internet; accessed
June 25, 2009.
8 Ernst Marcus, “The German Foreign Office and the Palestine Question,” Yad Vashem Studies, 194 in
Herbert Rosenkranz, “The Anschluss and the Tragedy of Austrian Jewry 1938-1945,” fn. 1, 430 cited in
Josef Frankel, The Jews of Austria, Essays on their Life, History and Destruction (London: Valentine,
Mitchell, 1967), 531.
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